time to close the window
by dotRHEA
Summary: - but it was then that the flag tore itself to shreds, shielding a fallen tiger midst wandering fingers and shameful eyes , "Goodbye to all the stories we'll tell" Slight AU. RoYu


**A/N** **: **based on Shin and Ayano's story from the Kagerou Project and the song, 'The Same Story' by HumbertHumbert. Originally, this was supposed to be a Rogue/OC fic at first, and then I realized Yukino would've fit perfectly into this as well and I don't think the OC approach would have gone well with this storyline anyways... I'll work on that next \_maybe_\

**TW: implications of suicide if you squint your eyes.**

* * *

Rogue listened half-heartedly as the wind blew open the window, drifting off to the sound of a startled squeal as the soft fabric of the curtain brushed against soft skin. Outside, the summer breeze had tussled the leaves surrounding the dorm; enveloping them in a song of rash shivers and shakes. The sky, colored with the violets and reds of a setting sun, stretched out behind the mountains beyond.

Beside him, a crumbled up photo had somehow manage to resurface from its prison between his leather bound journals and Frosch's golden treasures. Still as glossy as the day it had been printed, the Shadow Dragon Slayer could clearly make out the two shy faces hidden behind white folds and ripped edges.

Her voice had began singing in his ears for a while now, speaking to him in through the shadows and laughing like not a day had passed by since then. He could feel her cold fingers ghost over his hand as he reached out towards the ceiling, hearing a voice call out his name and answering with a giggle,

_"I'll always be here right beside you."_

With fluttering eyes, he could feel a hand smacking him on the head shyly. The weight of his elbow molding its shape into his pillow as he remembered and felt the shadows dance all around him.

A scowl had formed upon his lips, carving its shape through furrowed eyebrows and down curved lips but never fully reaching his eyes as he rolled to his side, facing the window as he watched the wind blow his curtains into the room, silhouetting her under a pale white sheet. He heard her giggle once again, a sweet sound like wind chimes as she gathered up the fabric with one hand and kept her hair in place with another. Her girlish habits only being lost on him as he stared with lost eyes, watching as she slid the window closed, and scolded him like a child before walking to his desk.

_"What are you doing ?"_ He asked, getting up from his bed and leaning over her as she scribbled over reports and requests with a red marker. His frown only deepening as she threw her head back and grinned at him, her pearly whites glistening in the light. He shuddered despite himself as she carefully wrote down characters with a hand fisted over a marker.

Her handwriting was sloppy, like that you would expect from someone with broken fingers. Dainty things wrapped in white age-stained fabric. Yet her characters still managed to stay as beautifully painted as before, albeit rather sloppy.

_"I'm writing a letter,"_ she'll say, grinning from ear to ear as she waited for his attention. She was like a child, just like a child. The guild stamp peeking out from under her shirt had been his only reminder that they were of the same kind. Trapped in raining expectations and suffocating competition. Yet she'd always flash him the same warming smile when they passed by each other in the great halls.

The letter was still sitting neatly on the center of his desk. A yellowed envelope laying on top of old books and pens that he had never dared touch.

She was like the tides, coming and going as the evenings drew her in and the mornings drove her out. Gravitating from his room to fields of ugly yellow grass as the wind played with her hair, picking up the freshly fallen leaves and clouding up her form.

Now, beside the letter was a small box of paper flowers. A testament to her nervous quirk.

( no one but Frosch knew that the lilies and _kusudama _were all creations he had helped make after he had figured out why she always seemed to be in a rush while crossing market street )

_"Hey, come by my side." _He was back to lying across his bed again, cape discarded and arms folded over his eyes. He heard the familiar shuffle of papers and the clatter of pens as she stood upright. Hidden were the weeps of a broken spirit.

Her voice was soft, she herself a testament to her namesake. Like snow and happiness and stories to be no longer told.

"_But I have to go,_" her voice breaking with one last gust of wind. All the resent, stress, and fatigue bottled into one measly sentence that sent waves through his body.

Quivering, shaking, and trembling like little earthquakes. The sound of bells and chimes and broken piano keys giving little staccato beats as a desperate voice pleaded to the dry air and shadows around him. Giving and repeating the same request that always managed to touch their lips at the same time,

"_Let's talk._"

But it was then that the flag tore itself to shreds, shielding a fallen tiger midst wandering fingers and shameful eyes. Overflowing from glass vases and shaking itself free of all their sins.

She was the unmoving body of snow personified.

Frozen in time, with hands unclean but innocent enough to stay stark white.

Yukino was everything he was not.

Stitched together with everything colorless, the sight of her amber eyes clouding up with tears had been forever burnt into his memories. Haunting him like little specters of guilt and sorrow. The same amber eyes he's seen laugh and giggle and twinkle with glee.

So broken were the two of them, that he hadn't even realize he had fallen into another slumber. The dream ending with a quick embrace of slender pale arms and the stomping of boots across his wooden floors.

His windows thrown open, with his desk exposed to the wind's carnage. His partner towered over him, gratefully blocking the sun's path as he raved on about his shadows.

Rogue had stopped listening the moment he was shaken awake however, arms slowly unfolding and picking himself up from bed. His bloodied eyes staying stationary to where she had been last in his dreams.

His chest plummeting like an anchor out at sea when he saw the crumbled up photo, shadows still creeping to and fro.

Over white creases did he make out her messy script.

_"This is goodbye to all the stories we'll tell."_


End file.
